


Desperation

by AlastorGrim



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Denial, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Eventual Love and Healing, Flashbacks, Identity Porn, Isolation, Kozmotis Has Issues, Morally Gray Jack Frost, Multi, Possession, Smut, Stockholm Syndrome?, Survivors Guilt, Tattooed Jack Frost, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Welcome To The Shit Show Folks, Withdrawn Consent, Yule log
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2019-12-18 13:46:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18251081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlastorGrim/pseuds/AlastorGrim
Summary: Jack met Pitch Black one dark night about a century ago, lonely and yearning for solace. Without the Guardians to urge him away, he fell deeply into Pitch's web. However, many years later, the Guardians defeat Pitch and Kozmotis Pitchiner is awakened once more. And he remembers everything.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I was scrolling through the blackice tag and stumbled along this half-dead little prompt, and I just had to. 
> 
> Other WiPs? What other WiPs?

_It was the Winter Solstice, a festival full of people brimming with hope and wonder, the Dark Ages having faded at last. Jack frosted window panes and hummed a tune he'd heard some sailors sing a while back. The air was light and buoyant--happy. Jack felt it in his chest like an ache, the weight of their joy, their fun. He longed to join them, to hurl snowballs and shriek and laugh and run with all the other children racing around._

_But Jack was invisible. He was invisible, and he was untouchable._

_The end of his staff jabbed moodily at the window in front of him, and it cracked. He winced, wide eyed, and hastily flew off towards the woods. He enjoyed the festivals most of the time, but tonight, something felt different._

_Maybe it was the lunar cycle. It was the first time since he'd cracked out of the ice that the moon was not bright and full on the night of his personal Solstice. The sky was clear, but void of the moon's bright emanace. Jack always thought he would feel relieved, free, when the sky was dark. But now, without the slight pressure in his chest telling him that the Man in the Moon was watching him, Jack felt empty, bereft, and a bit lost._

_He reached the woods easily and slipped down between the boughs to settle on the snow peppered ground. Leaves rustled beneath his feet, and he decided to walk for a bit, as he found he liked the feel of them crumpling beneath his toes._

_Jack continued to hum his tune, slow and minor. Something about a Mountain King, he'd heard the sailors say._

_The noises of the festival were distant behind him, and the further he walked, the quieter it became. Jack stopped when it was silent all around, only to find himself standing before a bed frame. It was a well-worn mahogany, well made, but empty of any mattress._

_"What the..." Jack furrowed his brows and ventured closer._

_"No closer," A strange voice hissed from behind him._

_Jack jolted and spun around, heart thundering in his chest. Glaring out of the darkness was a pair of luminescent eyes the color of fool's gold. Staring right at Jack. But that--that was impossible..._

_A man as tall as Jack was short swept forward, cloaked in clinging shadows, his face pale and gaunt. His gaze was weak, but feral. "Advance any further and you will be ripped apart, appendage by appendage. I do not make idle threats."_

_Despite the words, Jack couldn't seem to comprehend anything other than the ringing in his ears. His eyes burned, unbidden._

_"You can see me?"_

_"Of course I can see you, boy," The man sneered, though he looked confused now. Apprehensive._

_Before he could make good on his threats of dismemberment however, Jack lept into the air and let out a loud whoop, backflipping a few times as he laughed almost hysterically. Sporadic sparks of ice shimmered and spit from the crook of his staff. The man's eyes locked onto it for a moment, before Jack was suddenly in his face._

_The grin on his lips was joyous, blinding in its intensity. "You can see me! Oh, this is--this is awesome! You can **see** me!" _

_Realization dawned on the man's face, and he blinked wide eyes at Jack before extending a hand slowly in greeting. "Yes, I can," He began hesitantly, curiosity a bubbly froth in his stomach that he quickly smothered. "Pitch Black. And you are?"_

_Jack stared at the hand presented to him for several long seconds, before holding his breath and reaching out. His fingers clasped around hot, smooth skin, and he gave a full body shudder, stunned. He looked up abruptly to see that Pitch was staring at their hands with a similar kind of wonder, a longing that Jack felt familiar with in his dim eyes._

_"Jack," He breathed, awed. "Jack Frost."_

_"And am I the first spirit you've had the pleasure of meeting, Jack Frost?" Pitch murmured, something in his gaze turning flinty and calculating._

_"Well, uh, no. I met the Easter Bunny once, and Sandman occasionally smiles at me when he passes over. But besides them, it's just--just you."_

_"Just me," Pitch mused, contemplative. On a whim, just to see, he slid his hand until he could fold his long fingers between Jack's. He gave a little squeeze and reveled in the startled gasp that he recieved in response. Jack was cold, his clothes ragged and weather-worn and covered in frost, but he was solid. He was tangible. A reminder that for however weak Pitch felt, he was still **alive**._

_He gathered the frost spirit closer to him and pressed him roughly into his chest as a crude, desperate embrace. Instead of recoiling, like many others had, Jack shuddered and leaned into Pitch, fingers caught in the whorls of shadows that made up his robes._

_"I forgot how this felt..." Jack breathed, awed. His every nerve felt raw and hypersensitive. Pitch's skin was hot to the touch. Jack shivered._

_"You forgot touch?" Pitch murmured, distracted, and skated his hands down the slope of the spirit's back. Jack nodded faintly, hands now cupping his neck. He sighed. "So had I."_

_He skated his fingers beneath the boy's tunic, trailed his hand up the cool, bare skin, following the tempting curve of his back. Jack let out a stunned breath, leaned closer. Pitch licked his lips._

_"Forgive me or being so forward, but--"_

_"You can do whatever you want, as long as you don't take your hands off me," Jack gasped, eyes wild._

_Pitch's eyes darkened and his grip tightened. He needed no further permission. He ducked down and sealed Jack's slightly parted lips with his own. He caught Jack around the waist when his knees buckled, lips parted in a gasp, and took the opportunity to slide his tongue inside. If someone could taste like **outside** , Pitch was very sure that Jack tasted as such. He kissed him deeper, the cold of the winter spirit's mouth gone ignored._

_Jack keened brokenly into Pitch's mouth, hands feathered up into black hair, and clutched desperately at the back of his head. Afraid, so **afraid** that at any moment Pitch might push him away, or that he might lose corporality and he would push right through Pitch, invisible and intangible once more._

_But no. Pitch's fingers dug bruises into his shoulder blades, the warmth of his body pressed unyieldingly up against the chill of Jack's. Jack gasped in unneeded air when Pitch broke away, a stab of anxiety in his chest. But Pitch merely pressed their forehead's together._

_"Perhaps somewhere more private?" He murmured, eyes half-lidded._

_Jack nodded rapidly, and Pitch chuckled. His grip tightened, and in a dizzying swirl of black that clung to Jack's skin and tried to wriggle beneath his clothes, they were standing in a large room, empty, ornate bird cages hanging from the stone ceiling. The shadows receded, but they left Jack's skin stained gray in odd patterns._

_Momentarily distracted, Jack's eyes widened. "Where are we?"_

_"The Cavern," Pitch replied. He smoothed his palm greedily over the side of Jack's neck. "It resides beneath every bed, in the back of every closet, in the corner of every cupboard. The epicenter of fear." He watched as Jack jolted, recognition stealing over his features as he looked back at Pitch with wary eyes._

_"You're the Nightmare King? T-The Boegyman?"_

_"No need to sound so nervous, Jack. I'm not going to hurt you. Not first person to look at me, to talk to me," He gathered Jack close again, as if to keep him from fleeing. He carded his fingers up through the snowy hair at the base of Jack's skull. Jack's eyes fluttered shut. "To **touch** me, since I fell from power. Will you deny me this, Jack Frost? Will you deny yourself this?"_

_Deciding very quickly that he couldn't very well be good about this, any way he looked at it, Jack pressed himself closer. He caught Pitch around the neck and dragged him down to meld his lips with Pitch's once more, lips parted on a pleasant sigh. Pitch gave a brief noise of surprise, eyes wide, then closed his eyes and tugged at Jack's bottom lip with his teeth, tongue tangled with the boy's own, a pleased hum escaping him when Jack moaned low in his throat._

_Jack turned his head to side to breathe, an unshakeable habit, and panted out wet, wanting sounds as Pitch simply turned his attention to the expanse of pristine, unmarred skin beneath his jaw. "I-I meant what I said, before," Jack got out between high gasps. He glanced down at Pitch and threaded his fingers through dark, coarse hair once more. "You can do whatever you want as long as you keep touching me."_

_A smirk curled against his throat, and Jack cried out as Pitch sunk his teeth into the juncture of his shoulder, mouth painting his skin maroon and violet._

_" **Anything**?" His hands skated down and dipped hauntingly beneath the hem of Jack's trews._

_"Anything." Jack repeated, feverish._

_Without further ado, Jack was picked up by the backs of his thighs to settle on Pitch's hips. Another swirl of clinging, possessive black, and Pitch was laying him onto a mass of soft furs, hands rucked up under his tunic. Jack arched his back to help get it off, his own hands tucked into the shadows of Pitch's robe. Indulgent, Pitch rolled his shoulders and the shadows slid away like a chastised animal. Jack pressed his palms to bare, grayed skin, pulled taut but not thin over lithe muscles. Pitch was warm beneath his palms--warmer than most humans._

_The black pants that hid beneath the robe had stayed, not made of shadow, and Pitch leaned over Jack on the furs and pressed his hips down into Jack's. The rough friction, warm and good and not enough, not **enough** , made Jack groan and push up into the sensation._

_His every nerve was alight with feeling, starved, sensitive, and he could barely twist his hips to help Pitch when the man pulled his trews off as well. Naked, bared to the bright, hungry gaze of the Nightmare King, Jack felt light headed. Dizzy._

_"You aren't afraid of the dark, are you Jack?" He whispered._

_"N-Not particularly." Jack gasped._

_"Good."_

_Before Jack could inquire why exactly that was good, darkness bled out from Pitch's palm, slick and black like oil. Jack yelped as it slid over the crease of his thigh and curled beneath his pernium. Flushing hotly--a novelty Jack rarely experienced--Jack let out a shocked whine when it began to wriggle inside him, heels braced against the furs as he scrabbled for purchase on Pitch's shoulders._

_Its tapered tip drew patterns along his insides, and Jack choked as it widened in width the more it pressed into him. After so many years of not being touched, of not being seen, the combination of having places touched that had never been ventured before, and having a set of eyes on him, intent, **riveted** \--it sent him hurtling towards some sort of peak that he couldn't describe. _

_Then, as if on cue, the shadow shoved in abruptly, crowded into him and plowed into something that made sparks flash before his eyes and his abdomen twist deliciously. Jack let out a startled, broken cry, his muscles spasmed and his legs fell apart to push his hips up unconsciously for more._

_"That's it, Jack," Pitch crooned, his hands curled around Jack's ribs and fingers pressed between the bones. "Open up for me."_

_"Pitch--Pitch please," Jack gasped, head spinning with the heat scorching through his body. He let out a keen when the shadow within him curled and undulated against the nerves inside. It sent shocks of sensation down the backs of his thighs and up his spine, his mouth open and slack to let drawn out moans whisper past his lips._

_"Please what?" The Nightmare King asked innocently, but there was a wicked gleam in his eyes that made Jack's toes curl._

_"I-I...Please, Pitch." Jack's voice was wrecked, his eyes pleading even if he didn't exactly know what he was pleading for. He leaned up and twined his arms around broad shoulders, his chest flush with Pitch's, as he desperately tried to slot their mouths together again._

_Pitch sighed pleasantly into the trembling kiss, hungry hands digging into the winter spirit's hips as he crushed him even closer._

_This...this he understood. The fear, the **need** emanating from the boy beneath him, he understood it in a way he wished he didn't. It made him want to claw his way into Jack's ribs, mar the innocence he could see lurking beneath snowy skin until Jack Frost was as dark and twisted up as he was. _

_A beacon of cold, pure light in the heart of Pitch's black, mangled presence._

_And Pitch **wanted**._

_Wanted to sink his teeth into unblemished skin, wanted to stain the taste of outside on his tongue, wanted to consume Jack until he had that light and chill pulsing within his chest too._

_Instead, Pitch let the blue of Jack's eyes, the shaking of Jack's hands, and the solid press of Jack's lips against his drown him in sensation. The sensation of being seen, of being touched, of being **believed in**._

_He devoured the strained, desperate sounds pouring from Jack's mouth, and slid his shadows out of the boy abruptly. Jack yelped, Pitch's starved snarl against his jaw, and threw his head back as something unbearably hot slotted into him in place of the shadows. Heat like a volcanic eruption oozed into his very bones, his mouth open in a silent cry as his muscles spasmed and jerked. The stretch of it ached, the cock inside him a constant burn of pain and pleasure as Pitch sank in to the hilt._

_Jack clawed at Pitch's shoulders, frost spiralling out from his fingers and over firm muscles. "Move," He gasped, and he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have, because he was not ready, not ready at all but he was already drowning and he could happily die like this. "Move!"_

_With a low, guttural growl, Pitch snapped his hips forward harshly, his tongue tracing the groan of ecstasy on Jack's lips. He huffed and wrapped his arms around the frost spirit, pressed every inch of them together in a desperate bid for more touch. The angle was awkward, but Pitch couldn't bring himself to fix it. Not with Jack's punched out moans and mewls in his ear and the chill of ice in his chest._

_Shadows bled and bloomed between them, curled over Jack's skin and stained it gray._

_Pitch tipped the boy's hips to the side just a bit, before cocking his own and plowing back into that cold vice, purring when Jack's spine arched and he let out a wild, strangled sound. Frost spiked out into the dark furs beneath them, crackled with ice, and Jack pressed his face into Pitch's neck letting out delectable little "ah, ah, ah"s with every thrust._

_"Come on, Jack," Pitch mused, "Come on." He turned his head and sank his teeth into the meat of a snowy shoulder. Winter burst across his tongue as he broke skin, and Jack went rigid with a keen._

_"Pitch," He sobbed, body tremulous and shaken apart as his limbs locked up around Pitch, pearls of cum splattered across his stomach._

_Pitch purred deep in his throat as he fucked Jack through his orgasm, his own peak not far behind. It was only when Jack had stopped spasming and began to make high-pitched, pained whines that Pitch felt his arousal reach its height and crash over him, turning his thrusts jerky and rough. He groaned into the boy's shoulder, pleased as fresh pulse of frosted blood poured over his tongue._

_Despite his oversensitivity and Pitch's enthusiasm, Jack had yet to release his death grip on the Nightmare King, his entire body now a shaking mess._

_When Pitch finally regained coherency, he noticed that there was a particular fear oozing out into the air to mingle with the smell of sex. He let out a confused huff and felt the frost spirit bury his face in Pitch's neck. What was...?_

_Ah._

_"Will you stay?" Pitch rumbled, and licked idly at the slow healing bite mark now carved into Jack's shoulder._

_Jack's breath hitched then, and he pulled back then, eyes wide and glassy, to gape at Pitch. His grip tightened. "Y-You want me to stay?"_

_" **Very much so** ," Pitch kept his gaze on Jack, intent and unblinking._

_"...Okay," Jack whispered, soft and shy between them. "It's like I said," He held Pitch's eyes as he unwound his arms from Pitch's back and reached back to pry the long fingers from his own. He guided Pitch's hands by the wrists around his hips, over his stomach, up his ribs, until the rested over his sternum, cupped in Jack's cold little hands. Blue eyes gave Pitch an awed, slightly impish look. "Whatever you want."_

_'Oh,' Pitch wanted to breathe, ecstatic. 'You are going to regret that, Jack Frost.'  
_


	2. Chapter One

Burgess experienced a lot of cold weather. In fact, it could almost be said that the little town'd had the most snowfalls in all of America for the past two hundred years. Which was an odd number, sure, for weather patterns. Except some knew better.

Pitch stood at the edge of the treeline and glared out over at the children screaming and laughing as they tripped and slid across the frozen lake, the sun a dim semi-circle in the distance.

He snarled to himself, impatient. The urge to crack the ice and send the brats plummeting into the water was strong, but Pitch knew that Jack would be angry if he drowned children in the frost spirit's domain. The little area of kid infested town that Jack had claimed for himself was relatively free of Pitch's wrath and tantrums, as a gesture of good faith between the both of them. Given that it was also the only place that Jack ventured out to anymore, Pitch supposed that he could refrain from terrifying the children Jack occasionally deigned to bother with.

And, well, that wasn't necessarily true either. He made sure that Jack was never far from the Cavern, and hardly ever out of it at all if Pitch could help it. It was only when Jack truly began to claw at the walls that Pitch reluctantly gave him room to leave, but _never_ when the Moon was out.

Jack gave off a distinct signature, even so far underground, which just gave him another reason to claim the land above Pitch's lair as his own, the permafrost a testament to his existence. 

The lake Jack had emerged from was constantly frozen, and he liked to come out sometimes and watch the kids play on it, laughing with them and swinging from tree branches with his staff like a hooligan. Sometimes Pitch watched him, deep within the shadows, as he played and laughed and flew, and then as the children slowly trickled back inside and the fun within the air crumpled, turned black and heavy with sorrow and an old, aching fear that Pitch hated for how much it tasted like his own. He would step out of the shadows as Jack wilted, and take him back into the Cavern to reassure him viscerally that he was very much _alive_ and _tangible_.

But tonight, Jack was asleep. Deeply so. He would not wake until Pitch returned, wrapped in the depths of his shadows, away from the blistering light of the sun. 

The _Moon_.

Pitch wouldn't be long, he was sure. His plans to take down the guardians were almost ready, but he'd had a bad feeling for the past few days. They were planning something as well. And Pitch intended to find out what it was.

It would a quick excursion, in and out. They tended to congregate at the Pole, and the idiot Christmas harbinger never put up extra precautions to keep unfriendly spirits out. Pitch would slink in through the shadows, spy on their meeting, perhaps even sabotage a few things, then make his way back to the Cavern to run his new plans by Jack for a second opinion. Despite his tendency to act like a mischievous child, Jack was surprisingly good at picking out flaws in Pitch's strategies.

The children slowly trickled back inside, the violent bruise of a sky went black, and Pitch vanished into the shadows once more.

He reappeared within the darkness beneath the globe in the fat man's workshop, a black smudge upon the white of the South Pole. The Guardians stood just beyond the lip of the deck, already talking lowly amongst themselves. 

"What if this doesn't work? He's been fairly quiet, it's just a few more nightmares popping up here and there. What if he's not planning anything and we incite him into doing something?"

"It's Pitch, Tooth. He's always planning something."

Well, that idiotic pooka wasn't as dumb as he looked, it seemed.

"Bunny is right. It is time that this squabbling is being stopped once and for all. We have a chance to end things—we should be taking it."

There was a shifting sound, and a hum. 

"Sandy is right. We should fire it up now, get a feel for it before we bring it to Pitch."

That did not sound good.

This position was useless, he couldn't see a thing. He slid through the shadows around towards the top of the globe with a soft growl of frustration.

But then something went...wrong.

There was a loud bang, a bright light, and a terrible, terrible scream that made Pitch's chest ache. 

Then everything was...

                                            _**g**_

_**o** _

_**n** _

_**e** _

_**°** _

_***** _

_**•** _

•❄️•

 

_"Jack."_

_Jack looked up the giant snowflake he was crafting with wide eyes. He was floating is a sea of shifting colors, but he didn't find it odd. It felt as normal as finding a large monster staring down at him from the dark sky above, dripping ooze from a jagged maw._

_But Jack was not afraid._

_Mangled claws ripped the sky open further, the ooze turning red. The creature was eyeless, noseless. Jack wanted to help it._

_"Help me, Jack, help me."_

_"Tell me how," Jack pleaded, anxiety lodged in his chest at the frightened tenor resonating from the beast. He knew this monster, this monster was his friend, and it was in danger._

_"JaCk **K** k **K** k—" It clicked with a strangled moan. The entire plane rumbled and began to break apart. The shadows began to contort and scream, until they went from red to gold. Terror exploded in Jack's chest and he shot to his feet, but the sky was too far away. The multicolored waters began to rise rapidly, passing his ankles and crawling up his shins. "Eat the stars, Jack."_

_"W-What?" He croaked, voice gone high with nerves._

_The monster growled then, very upset now. "Eat the stars! Eat the stars, eat the stars, EAT THE STARS! EAT THE—"_

_Jack didn't hear the rest. The colors crested and crashed over his head, the monster letting out a hideous scream as its body bled from black to gold and began to dissolve._

_Then the world went white._

 

•❄️•

 

The Guardians stared at the man crumpled on the floor of the workshop, a large black stain scorched beneath him into the wood. Gray skin had gone deathly pale, the deep black of his coat gone to reveal scarred, pale skin.

Sandy's eyes widened, and he and Bunnymund glanced at each other in disbelief. Tooth was gaping.

"It worked." She breathed. "It actually worked!"

But that wasn't what had the other two so stunned. Bunnymund was the first to find his tongue. "Kozmotis?"

North's eyebrows rose and his eyes shot to the man slumped on the floor in disbelief. "You do not mean—?"

"The _General_?" Tooth gasped. "From Lune? You mean to say that Pitch wasn't..."

"Kozmotis was possessed by the Darkness a long time ago. We all thought him lost to it, that perhaps Pitch was all that was left of him." North scrubbed a hand over his face as he stared. "It would appear not."

"We still don't know if that's actually Kozmotis, mate." Bunny responded warily. "Maybe the Darkness hollowed him out and he's nothing but a vegetable now."

Sandy put his hands on his hips and blew sand out of his ears in disapproval, irritated. 

North shook his head. "Whatever the case, until we know more, he stays here." He looked over all of them with narrowed, serious eyes. "Manny would not have been telling us how to do this if he had not thought that might have been a possibility. We must be prepared for anything when he awakes."

"If he wakes," Bunny grumbled, and Sandy whacked him on the knee.

For now, all they could do was wait and see.


	3. Chapter Two

He was drifting in a sea of uncertainty. He had been for a while. Emptiness, vast and dark, combated by quick, piercing flickers of light that made him feel _himself_ again.

But...who was he?

What was his name?

He didn’t know.

Strange, wasn’t it? He ought to know his own name. And he thought he did, but there were four of them floating by his subconscious and he wasn’t sure which one was the right one.

“K…”

“Koz…”

“Ko...tis...”

No, that wasn’t right. But it was close. Yes, very close. 

“ _KOZMOTIS!_ ”

Shooting up in bed, Kozmotis Pitchiner heaved in a startled, aching gasp. He doubled over with a groan, pain echoing throughout his entire body, as if every inch of him had been stabbed through with needle-thin blades. A hand pressed to his forehead, he grit his teeth and shook as pain rode through his body like an angry horse. 

Kozmotis let out a strained huff when he could breathe properly again, only to abruptly choke as cognition came rushing back. Wide golden eyes stared, horrified, at the wall of…

Where was he?

Another bout of ache, a painful gong in his head, and memories came flooding back. A shocked shout scraped through his throat, and he fell out of the bed he’d been placed in. A door to his right burst open, a familiar shape poised to strike shadowed in its frame.

“S-Sehstor?” Kozmotis coughed weakly. He gripped his skull roughly and groaned. “No...Bunnymund. Epiphanes.”

“General Pitchiner?” A heavily accented voice came from behind the pooka.

“ _Don’t_ call me that,” He snarled on instinct. He clenched his jaw and staggered to his feet, palm pressed over his eye in a futile attempt to alleviate some of the pain. “I am...no longer a General. That title stopped being mine a very long time ago. My name has been _bastardized_ —” He stumbled and caught himself on the wall.

Kozmotis dug his nails into the wood, infuriated at his own helplessness. _Pathetic_. He leveled Nicholas St. North and the last of the pooka with a miserable glare. There was a bone deep urge to hurt and cause pain that trembled in his limbs when he looked at them, and he hated that they were seeing him like this at all, so weak, but he shoved the urge down.

There was an absence of malicious voices in his head egging him on. A distinct lapse in his memory. “Where have they gone? What have you done with them? If you’ve dispersed them, they’ll eventually regroup. You need to move while you can, when they’re weakened.”

North shoved his way into the room. “What? Kozmotis, you can barely stand. You want to go after them?”

“The longer you wait the stronger they’ll get,” He ground out, smothering the lingering urge to hiss and swing something heavy at the man. “I am afraid that I...cannot help you. I would be more hinderance than help. I would slow you down; they will seek me out because I am familiar.”

“You’ve been knocked out for about three weeks, mate,” Bunnymund stated gruffly, ears flattened warily. “Wouldn’t they have sought you out by now?”

Kozmotis froze, face gone even paler than it had previously. His wide, abruptly panicked eyes sliced up into narrow green. “What? Why— _Why_ have you not gone after them? Why have you not _disposed_ of me? Three weeks should have been more than enough time to track them down and cut off their last tie to this plane!”

Bunnymund scowled and crossed his arms, “Considering we were waitin’ to see if you were still off your rocker, we would’ve rather dealt with you first and then gone after what was left of the shadows.”

North scratched at his beard with a frown. “Bunny is being right. We needed to make sure you were no longer threat. But also,” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Sandy said that you were once great warrior. That you may be able to help us fight them off once more, should you be of your right mind.”

Kozmotis laughed, caustic and self-deprecating. “I’m not much of a threat to anyone in this state. I failed to defeat them once, what makes you think I would do a better job like this?”

“That’s what I said,” Bunnymund grumbled. 

“Can you give us nothing?” North barreled on, face soft in a way that made Kozmotis’ skin crawl. “Nothing that might help us with them?”

“You’d need to be able to create the Living Light, and you need some sort of blade to channel it through, which in itself takes years to master.” Kozmotis scrubbed a hand over his face and glanced around the room. He plucked a pair of scissors off the dresser near him and wiggled them mockingly in their direction. He jabbed them in North’s direction. “So if any of you have that kind of—” A large beam of pure, golden light exploded from the scissors. It sliced through the air , just missing North, and slammed into the wall, where it left a faint, glittery stain in the panels.

Kozmotis went somehow paler. Bunnymund gaped as North ran an awed hand over the gold-spotted grain. He looked to Kozmotis with a raised eyebrow, the slightest of smirks on his lips.

“I should not be able to do that,” Kozmotis said hoarsely. His hand trembled as he look down at the scissors in his hand. “I should _not_ be able to do that.” His voice had gone tight and high, somewhere between desperate and hysterical. “I-I was tainted for too long, they _destroyed_ my light. How is this possible?” He breathed.

“Well, I am seeing that it is very possible, and that you are more help to us than you are thinking, yes?” North’s eyes crinkled up in a smile, even as Bunnymund bristled.

“Great,” Bunnymund snapped. “He’s not useless. We’ve got a way to take ‘em out. Question is, how exactly do we do that when they’re nowhere to be found?” He tapped his foot impatiently, restless.

Kozmotis tore his gaze from the scissors, his face suddenly very exhausted. He ran a hand through his hair. “They would gather somewhere familiar to recouparate. Most of them would return to the Cavern if—” He froze abruptly, entire body going rigid. He clapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh _fuck_.”

Bunnymund’s ears twitched up, alert. North’s brow creased in concern. “What? What is it?”

Horrified eyes turned to stare up at North, stunned.

“Jack.”

 

•❄️•

 

The entire Cavern was seething with darkness, just as Kozmotis had thought it would be. But he cut through fearlings and shadows alike with single-minded determination, one of North’s swords at his fingertips and the rest of the guardians at his back. Time had not dulled Kozmotis’ motor skills it seemed—the ease with which the shadows fell before him brought back memories from Before.

But that didn’t matter now. 

The Guardians didn’t truly understand what was at stake, only that he had panicked and demanded that they go to the Cavern _right then_ to destroy the shadows there. They watched with wide, wary eyes as Pitch hacked and slashed his way towards the heart of the Cavern with fervor of a man possessed. Or, depossessed. 

The shadows and fearlings became more and more erratic the closer they got, and Tooth gasped as they caught sight of a large, writhing mass of darkness clotted together near the cieling, like a pulsing, angry beehive. Bunnymund’s ears went flat against his head. North swore under his breath in Russian, eyes wide. Kozmotis locked onto the hulking mass and let out a roar of determination. A few Nightmares lurked at the sides of the Cavern, eyes on Kozmotis, but they didn’t attack. Kozmotis swung back, the borrowed shirt North had lent him billowing around his wrists, and with a deep wrench from the very depths of his soul, he unleashed the biggest, broadest, _brightest_ arch of light yet.

It crashed into the nest and imploded. Nightmare men screamed and dissipated, shadows dissolved, fearlings crumbled into ash. Clumps of weak shadows and a few fearlings managed to lurch into the depths of the Cavern and disappear into the ether with angry hisses. Something fell to the ground, still cradled in dying darkness.

Kozmotis’ entire being went cold, and he dropped the borrowed sword. He let out a strangled breath of air. 

The figure stirred, and with a sleepy noise, the last of the darkness fell away as he sat up. Jack blinked and raised a limp fist to rub at his eyes. He yawned, an arm stretching above his head, covered in deep curls of black. Jack was _smothered_ in them, those stains of black patterned all over his snowy skin where the shadows had held him.

Jack turned his head, confusion on his face, but his eyes lit up when he came across Kozmotis. “Pitch! I was wondering where you’d skulked off to.” He hopped up onto his feet with ease. “I had this horrible dream, and I got worried about you, but I couldn’t wake myself up. I’m gonna guess that’s your fault, ya sadist,” He chirped with a good-natured sneer. Bare toes kicked his staff up into his hands for him to lean on. Then he blinked, head tilted as he looked past Kozmotis towards the other Guardians. “Who are they?”

Kozmotis had lost his voice. Looking at Jack sent so many things shooting through him that he swayed where he stood, unsteady and nauseated. For what could he say?

What could he say to Jack Frost, who he had wronged more greatly than any other under the influence of the Darkness? Who was covered in the remanants of his weakness, stripped nearly bare by his whims. What could he say?

Bunnymund stepped forward then, flabbergasted. Sandy had his little hands pressed to his mouth. “Jack? Jack _Frost_?”

Jack’s eyes zeroed in on Bunnymund and squinted. They widened after a moment, pupils gone small. Jack slid his stance into something more defensive, teeth bared. “Bunny. What the hell are you doing here?” His head snapped to look at Kozmotis. “What is he doing here? You know how I feel about—” 

He cut himself off, face gone slack. Blue eyes roved over Kozmotis intently, and in a moment so quick that Kozmotis couldn’t have possibly reacted in time, Jack had him by his side and a latticed wall of thick ice between them and the Guardians. Staff clattering to the ground, Jack took Kozmotis’ face in his cold little hands and began to turn him this way and that.

“You look _awful_. Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Pitch, I told you to _tell_ me when you feel like you’re fading. I can help, you know I can. Or—did they do something? Did they do this to you?” Jack muttered furiously, an icy glare thrown at the now alarmed Guardians.

“Jack,” Kozmotis whispered, strained. He reached up and pried the frost spirit’s hands from his face. He turned his head away, eyes screwed shut. “Jack, stop.”

“Pitch…?” Jack’s brow furrowed, confused. Something wounded flashed through his eyes when Kozmotis slid away from him. He glanced back at the Guardians and hesitated. “Pitch, what’s going on? That’s—That’s the Tooth Fairy. You _hate_ the Guardians. What happened? Why do you look like that?” He asked softly. Staff leaping back into his hands, Jack twisted it nervously, obviously worried.

“Sandy is being right!” North suddenly boomed from the other side of the ice wall. Both men jumped. “We should be talking about this somewhere else, yes? Perhaps the workshop?” He suggested loudly, eye visible through the latticework as he peered in on them. 

Jack narrowed his eyes and ventured slowly over to the wall. “Is that...North?” He grumbled. When he was close enough to touch the fence, he melted a small opening to stick his head through. He blinked up at North and beamed. “It is! Ha! I’ve always wondered what you looked like up close. I used to watch your sleigh go by on Christmas and catch the bells that fell off.” He gave him a once over and grinned. “Cool sword, by the way.”

North puffed out his chest, hands on his hips as he smiled gently down at Jack. “You are coming to workshop then?”

Jack looked over his shoulder to Kozmotis, who nodded solemnly. He turned back to North with a smile. “I guess so. I’ve always wanted to see inside there.” He tapped his staff to the thickest part of the fence and stepped back to watch it crumbled into frost. He shuffled his bare feet through it with a hum, his floor-length core cloth swaying with him. “I liked the lights.”

Fishing a snowglobe out of his pocket, North chuckled. “Well you can admire the lights all you like over hot chocolate. We will be filling you in.”

“Cool,” Jack swung his staff to rest across his shoulders, pleased.

“Fantastic,” North threw the snowball down, and the portal burst into colorful existence. He gestured for Jack to go first.

Jack made to go in, then paused. His eyes widened and he spun on heel to stride back over to the wall. “One second! I always forget…” He approached one of the darker spots, and a set of bright eyes blinked open to stare down at him. The Guardians tensed at the appearance of a Nightmare, but were stunned to silence by Jack reached out and patting its snout. He tipped his head and simpered at the hulking creature. “Please?”

The Nightmare snuffed at him, and, much to the Guardians’ surprise, spiraled out of form to circle dark tendrils around Jack’s ankles. They spun around his legs and up to his waist, before pulling back into the Nightmare. In place of the core cloth, there was a pair of flowing silver pants, fools gold speckled at the hems. 

Jack gave a satisfied hum and scritched the Nightmare under the chin. “Thanks, pretty thing.” He hopped away from the dark corner back towards North. Near Kozmotis, Jack paused to face him. “I thought you were coming home, uh, unaccompanied. A little warning would’ve been nice.”

With that, he sauntered off and through the portal. North went to follow him after a moment, but not before turning to Kozmotis and levelling him with a heavy, serious look. North was going to pelt him with eight million questions when he managed to get him alone again, but then again, Kozmotis imagined that the other three had their questions as well. He wasn’t sure he could answer any of them.

"Um, what was that?" Tooth asked slowly.

"That," Pitch began tiredly, "Was Jack Frost. The boy the Nightmare King has kept on a leash for the past two centuries."

"He went missing, right around Christmas two hundred years ago. Nobody knew where he went, only that he was still alive because winter came on steady every season. I tried to seek him out in '68 after that big blizzard--I thought he was having me on. But nobody had seen him." Bunnymund looked at Kozmotis with raised eyebrows. "He was here this whole time? You kept him here?"

"...I regret many things that I did as Pitch Black," Kozmotis said after a moment. "Everything, really. You don't live a life alongside millions of evil incarnate and come away without regrets. But Jack..." Kozmotis let out a breath and clenched his fists. "Jack Frost might just be my biggest one." 

With that, he strode forwards ahead of the others and vanished into the portal himself.


	4. Chapter Three

Jack hooked his staff off the back of the large armchair North had pointed him to, a mug just a tad too hot cradled in his hands as he settled, cross-legged, onto the cushions. Frost crept over the colorful porcelain, his fingers slightly welted up from the heat. Blowing a breath of chill over his drink when North wasn’t looking, he froze it solid.

Pitch emerged from the portal not long after, Bunny and Sandy just behind him. Jack glowered at Bunny suspiciously, but eventually his gaze was drawn back to Pitch. It always came down to Pitch.

North had plopped himself down in another armchair across from Jack with a jovial but wary smile. “We are beginning now, yes? Sit, everyone, sit. Is not formal meeting, sit down, Bunny, don’t scowl.”

“So you’re Jack Frost,” A voice chirped just next to Jack’s ear. He jumped and whipped his head around to meet a pair of large, purple eyes. A perfect smile beamed at him, a slim feathered hand thrust into his space. “Toothiana! But you can call me Tooth.”

“Jack,” His lips quirked up. He decided that he liked her, though handshakes were still a no-no. Glancing down at her outstretched hand, he gave her an apologetic smile and shook his head. 

“Oh, sorry. Are you...uncomfortable?” She tried, expression contrite.

“Nah, nothing so serious,” Jack laughed. “It’s just not allowed. You seem cool though—don’t tell Pitch I said that,” He joked with a wink.

Tooth’s light expression fell and something Jack didn’t particularly want to examine flitted across her face. He turned his attention back to the whole group, who were now mostly seated, save for Tooth, who liked to hover. Pitch was seated in the far chair, by the window, and he looked distracted. His absent gaze slid over to Jack, who tipped his mug up in question. Pitch’s eyes widened a fraction, then narrowed, nostrils flaring. He nodded jerkily and turned his attention hastily away. 

Touching his index finger to the block of chocolate ice in his mug, it fell apart into a frothy slushie. Jack sipped it and gave a hum of approval. It was good. Sweet.

“So Jack,” North began at once, making Jack blink. “We have explanation for you, yes?” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, coat rolled up to his biceps. He had awesome tattoos. They kind of reminded Jack of his own markings, the friezes of damask and paisleys swirled all over his skin, bracketed by thick, clear bands of black around the base of his throat, his wrists, his ankles, and the tops of his thighs. Not that they could see the latter. 

Jack leaned back in the chair, attention still on Pitch, unable to acquiesce the concern in his chest. The gray tinge to his skin was completely gone, as pale as Jack had ever seen him, the shadows that normally played around his ankles completely absent. His eyes were bright and luminous, where before they had been muted. He looked really, really sick. “I hope so.”

Sandy, who had been relatively silent—even for Sandy—since they had come down the Cavern, abruptly began to form symbols above his head that disappeared just as quickly as they came. Jack was only able to catch some of them, wide eyed. A clock, a silhouette of Pitch’s face (weird but okay), and what looked like handcuffs. North’s face darkened, and Pitch was resolutely refusing to acknowledge them all. Sandy blew sand out of his ears and stopped trying to sign, instead just pointing at Pitch accusingly, looking incensed.

“I understood none of that,” Jack stated bluntly, eyebrows raised. “Somebody else wanna give explaining what the hell happened to Pitch a go? Not that I don’t appreciate the effort, little man, but I don’t really speak your language.”

“What Sandy is saying is that, well...Hm, maybe I should start from beginning.” North drew in a deep breath and pressed steepled fingers to his lips. “Jack, Pitch is gone.” His eyes lidded and his mouth tensed, like he was preparing for some big reaction, like Jack would explode on him.

Jack let out a startled laugh. “He’s right there, North, I’m not blind.” He raised an eyebrow and nodded at Pitch. “Is this a weird prank or something? If so, it’s not a very good one.”

North blinked as Jack took another sip of his cocoa. He scratched his fingers through his beard as he tried to articulate exactly what he wanted to say. “Jack, you see he is very pale now, yes? No blackness about him? No shadows?” Bright blue eyes flicked to North in confusion, and the man held back a flinch. He drew in a deep breath. “That is because they are gone. The darkness that used to inhabit him has fled. Kozmotis has been, for lack of better word, exorcised.”

The word exorcised triggered a blare of alarm through Jack, and he whipped his head around to look at Pitch, but the man was still refusing to look at him. He was glaring out the window with such intensity that Jack half expected the drapes to catch fire. Why wouldn’t he look at Jack? Had he done something wrong? Is that why Pitch wasn’t giving him cues? Because Jack was honestly holding his anxiety and bewilderment back by a hair, and this really wasn’t helping. His dream already had him worried, but then Pitch showed up looking like _that_ , the Guardians and _Bunnymund_ behind him, as if they haven’t spent the last two hundred years building up camaraderie based on their mutual disgruntlement in regard to the Guardians.

Normally, it was just Jack plotting out plans to ruin Easter (that he’d never actually do but Pitch seemed to find amusing), and Pitch seething about the rest of the Guardians. He always growled particularly loudly when ranting about the Sandman, which Jack tended to ignore, because out of all the Guardians, Sandman was the one he didn’t mind all that much. Not that he’d ever tell Pitch that, of course. Besides, if Jack got tired of Pitch snarling about crushing people into dust, it was usually very easy to...distract him.

But now Jack didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Pitch wasn’t telling him, and Jack didn’t want to somehow piss him off _more_ by doing something he didn’t like. The concern for Pitch was rapidly becoming fear, thick and cloying, and even that wasn’t enough to get those piercing eyes to glance at him.

‘ _Why won’t you look at me?_ ’

“Pitch? Is that true? Are the shadows gone? Is that why you’re so sick?” Jack prodded insistently, craning his neck to try to catch the man’s eye.

“...Yes,” Pitch responded after a moment, his tone clipped and stiff.

Oh. 

Oh! Jack understood now. 

Pitch wasn’t angry with him at all—he was angry at the _situation_. Jack could sympathize; if he were Pitch, he wouldn’t want to be powerless in front of people he hated either. As it was, he didn’t like being in the same room as Bunnymund. The fear and anxiety bubbling in his chest popped and deflated, and Jack slumped back into the chair.

“For fuck’s sake, Pitch, would you _look_ at me. I know you like freaking me out, but you know I hate it when you do that.”Jack chided as he tipped up his cocoa slushie again. Almost as if startled, Pitch’s head jerked up to look at him. At the heavy feeling of those golden eyes on him again, Jack silently preened. “Thank yoooou,” He mused. “Now, I guess we move onto the problem of how to fix this? I’m guessing that’s why we’re teaming up with the Guardians. To help you get your lil’ minions back?”

“NO!” Was the loud, simultaneous chorus of Pitch, Bunny, and North. Jack jumped.

Pitch was the first to recover. He heaved a deep breath and met Jack’s gaze steadily. Jack was frowning, bewildered, and looking to him for an explanation. “What I mean is, the shadows have scattered and we have no idea where they are.” He sent Bunnymund a sharp look when he went to interject. “We’re still looking for them, but until then, we’ll be staying with North in his workshop. It’s safer than the Cavern for now.”

Jack was still mightily confused, but he knew better than to argue. He nodded and nursed the mug in his hands to distract himself. “That’s fair, I s’pose. Can I still visit Burgess?”

For some reason, Pitch winced. “Of course.”

A pleased grin curled Jack’s lips. “Awesome! I’ll even look for the shadows that left the Cavern when I’m there. They can’t have gone far, after all.”

“That seems a little dangerous, doesn’t it?” Tooth worried. “I don’t think you should go looking for them on your own.”

“Nah, they love me!” Jack flapped a dismissive hand at her with a lopsided grin. “Besides, we can’t just wait for them to come to us, can we? I know you guys don’t like what Pitch represents or whatever, but I think it’s good that you’re finally realizing that he’s a necessity too. Even if he can go a little overboard.” Bunny seemed to be having a silent stroke if the way his face spasmed was any indication. Jack snickered at him, then turned to Pitch again. “So where are we sleeping?” He chirped.

North abruptly shoved himself to his feet. “Yes! I show you to your rooms now. Enough discussing for one day. Come, rooms are this way.”

Surprised, but pleased, Jack hopped off the chair and grabbed his staff. He glanced back and hesitated when he saw Pitch wasn’t standing to follow. “You coming?”

Pitch averted his eyes. “Later, perhaps.”

“...Okay.”

Jack followed after North, feeling oddly bereft.

 

•❄️•

 

Kozmotis pinched the bridge of his nose and ducked his head with a heavy sigh. “This is not going to end well.”

“What did you _do_ to him?” Toothiana said quietly, hands pressed against her mouth.

“The Nightmare King was a very possessive creature. Jack was relatively young when we encountered him, only a century old. It was just after the Dark Ages had ended, and Jack came upon us, wounded and weak, and he was...kind. Lonely. It was only too easy for the Nightmare King to grow an attachment to him, and to ensure that it would be returned.”

“So, what? You’re sayin’ he’s been conditioned or something?” Bunnymund gruffed, arms crossed and looking very uncomfortable.

“Exactly,” Kozmotis replied, tone tired. Bunnymund blinked at him, startled, and Kozmotis had a sudden craving for a large quantity of alcohol. "Jack's not allowed to go anywhere without his permission, do anything without his permission, and certainly not touch anyone. _Ever_. The relationship was dependent-- _toxic_. And Jack doesn't want out of it, much less know a way to escape it." 

Tooth's eyes widened. "And now he's looking to you for guidance. Because he thinks you're still Pitch."

"We need to ease him into this slowly," Kozmotis explained with a sharp look at Bunnymund when he opened his mouth. "Jack is attached to Pitch Black. If he discovers that he and I are indeed _not_ the same person, and that we are actively working to cut off any chance for the Nightmare King's return, he will be devastated. He will work against us, and trust me when I say that is not something you want. However childish he may seem, Jack is extremely powerful, and when provoked he can and will bring down the full might of Winter upon us." Kozmotis glanced at Bunnymund. "You think 1968 was bad? That was an _accident_. He wasn't even trying. Think of what he can do when he _is_ ," He warned solemnly.

"...R-Right," If pooka could pale, Kozmotis was sure Bunnymund would be ghostly. "So we keep the ankle biter in the dark and happy. Shouldn't be hard." 

"...It hasn't been," Kozmotis murmured, voice tight and eyes dim.

This was not going to end well.


End file.
